Luis Leon of Allentown, who his family says was taken into custody by ICE in Philadelphia in June. The family had no idea of his whereabouts and even believed for a time that he was dead before finding out he is in a hospital in Guatemala, according to his granddaughter. (Contributed by the Leon family)
Relatives of 82-year-old Allentown resident Luis Leon are headed to a Guatemalan hospital Saturday in hopes of reuniting with the man they say disappeared without a trace into the American immigration system a month ago — and who, for a time, they thought was dead.
The last time anyone in the family saw Leon was June 20, when he went with his wife to a Philadelphia immigration office to have his lost green card replaced.
There, the family says, he was handcuffed by two officers, who led him away without explanation. His wife, who speaks little English, was left behind and kept in the building for 10 hours until she was released to her granddaughter, the family says.
Repeated inquiries to immigration officials, prisons, hospitals and even a morgue yielded no information. Leon’s name was not in ICE’s online database of detainees.
Finally, on Friday, a relative from Leon’s native Chile was told he had been taken first to a detention center in Minnesota and then to Guatemala. The hospital, citing privacy rules, would not verify his presence there when contacted by The Morning Call.
Leon was granted political asylum in 1987 after surviving torture at the hands of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet’s regime, according to his granddaughter, Nataly, who asked that her surname not be used because she fears U.S. government retribution against her and her relatives.
In Allentown, he lived a quiet life, raising four children and enjoying retirement after years working at a leather manufacturing plant.
It all fell apart, Nataly said, when he lost the wallet holding his green card and made the fateful appointment to replace it at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services office on 41st Street in Philadelphia.
Frustration at not knowing Leon’s whereabouts turned to grief July 9, when a caller informed Leon’s wife that he had died, Nataly said.
An ICE official said Friday the agency is investigating the matter but would share no other information, refusing even to confirm that Leon was at the Philadelphia office in June.
Nataly, for her part, has run the gamut from confusion to grief to frustrated rage — often in the course of a few hours — as she has tried to learn her grandfather’s fate.
On Friday, after hearing he was in Guatemala, she tearfully said she wants the world to know how he’s been treated by the immigration system.
“I can see all my family is in pain right now,” she said.
The mystery surrounding Leon’s ordeal goes beyond ICE. Just days after his arrest, a woman claiming to be an immigration lawyer placed an unsolicited call to Leon’s wife and said she could help get Leon out on bail, but didn’t say where he was or how she learned about the case.
It was this woman who called to tell his wife that Leon was dead. A week after communication from the purported lawyer ceased, the family finally received word that Leon had been in detention in Minnesota and then transferred to a hospital in Guatemala City.
Nataly said she intended to fly to Guatemala on Saturday to see her grandfather, whose condition is unknown. He suffers from diabetes, a heart condition and high blood pressure, among other conditions, she said.
Nataly said the man she calls abuelo — Spanish for grandfather — is a well-liked figure around his Allentown neighborhood. He gardens, goes fishing with a close friend and, because he is skilled with tools, functions as a handyman for neighbors who need minor repairs.
The Trump administration’s aggressive deportation program was initially supposed to be directed at undocumented residents who have committed crimes. However, the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, which gathers data on federal immigration enforcement, says the vast majority of people in ICE detention as of July 13 — 40,643 out of 56,816, or 71.5% — have no criminal convictions.
Many of those with convictions were for minor offenses, including traffic violations, the organization said.
Leon, according to his family, never had so much as a parking ticket — a contention borne out by court records.
Staff writer Anthony Salamone contributed to this report.
This is about racism and misogyny. It follows the Russian all white male jacked up soldiers who are getting their asses handed to them in Ukraine. This clown “Kegseth” is clueless what a modern military is and can be. Remember he was picked because he was a weekend host on Fox opinion net work. Hugs
Hegseth doing pushups with sailors aboard the USS Dewey | Department of Defense
Pete Hegseth loves to have his picture taken doing jumping jacks, jogging with the troops, and hanging with buff special ops commandos. In fact, the Secretary of Defense is all about appearances, making a constant show of being more virile than anyone who’s ever preceded him.
In the name of warfighting and military readiness, Hegseth is self-appointed commanding general of the war on wrinkles.
His obsession has provoked a slew of new rules and regulations about “standards” of grooming and appearance, a deadly serious effort encompassing everything from banning eyelash extensions to offering government-funded laser hair removal procedures. With an emphasis on rules that most impact women and minorities, Hegseth wants to establish his own wokeness, a campaign that stresses looks over actual excellence.
Looks like DOGE missed a spot
The new grooming standards, one Army directive says, are “in support of Army readiness” — military speak for the ability to act swiftly and effectively. Far from some obscure policy, Hegseth believes that disciplined hair care will lead to a disciplined military, restoring the “warrior ethos” he often laments the armed forces have lost.
“We’re looking at overall fitness standards, overall grooming standards, overall basic standards across our formations that we believe have slipped certainly under the previous administration, but over decades,” Hegseth told Congress last month.
“It’s almost like the broken windows theory of policing: when you ignore the small stuff from criminals … it creates a culture where big stuff you’re not held accountable for,” he pontificated at a town hall meeting in February.
Army briefing on “Male Grooming Standard” | Defense Department
Here are three new grooming standards that particularly caught my eye:
Shaving, particularly for soldiers who seek waivers to standard policies due to health complications that daily shaving can cause. This is most common for black and brown folks who have curly hair; so common in fact that the directive makes explicit mention of “pseudofolliculitis Barbae,” or razor bumps, which can become infected.
The directive enumerates three phased treatment plans corresponding to mild, moderate and severe cases. A fourth phase provides the option of laser hair removal to soldiers unresponsive to the previous treatments or with chronic issues.
Eyelash extensions are now banned. No real justification is given but I’m sure it’s a coincidence that this also impacts black and brown people the most. Similarly, nail polish must now be “clear or French or American Manicure only,” a sacrifice to the gods of uniformity which feels more arbitrary than purposeful.
Petty changes to uniforms are being directed, from a ban on duty identifier patches, to shorter boots (“8-12 inches”), to important contingency plans on how to wear one’s sleeves (“the cuffs will remain visible, and the sleeve will rest at, or within 1-inch of, the forearm when the arm is bent at a 90-degree angle”; though “Commanders may prohibit rolling of sleeves and folding of cuffs.”)
It is a hodgepodge of “new” directives that are mostly costly annoyances but overall leave enlisted soldiers I’ve talked to feeling like the Pentagon and “leadership” are just playing a sadistic game of Simon Says.
Clean-shaven soldiers, however, aren’t going to bring the U.S. military closer to an end to the war in Ukraine or create greater security in the Middle East. More creases aren’t going to help tackle the challenges of drones and artificial intelligence, or fight the new Cold War with China.
In fact, Hegseth seems to be taking a page out of the Russian military playbook, which upon suffering over one million casualties in Ukraine, is also trying to stress appearances over serious failures of policy and humaneness.
Russia’s Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov has launched his own campaign to improve troop discipline by clamping down on non-standard haircuts, according to British intelligence, which assessed that this caused him to be “focused on presentation over substance.” In Russia’s case, a laughably undisciplined and corrupt force indeed needs to reform. But emulating Gerasimov is more of an insult to the men and women of the U.S. armed forces.
But this is more about Hegseth, for whom “presentation over substance” seems like his entire worldview. Here he is posing on the Pentagon lawn while signing an order on drone production, a piece of paper that was delivered by drone. The contents of the order didn’t get much attention but the image of the smartly dressed Secretary plucking the paper from the drone instantly became a meme.
Since his first appearance at the Ukraine Defense Contact Group in February, when Hegseth mistakenly got ahead of President Trump’s negotiations by declaring Ukraine’s intent to regain its territory as “unrealistic” — prompting criticism from his own party’s Chair of the Armed Services Committee Sen. Roger Wicker, who called it “amateur” — Trump’s secretary has not had a hair out of place.
In every photo I can find, Hegseth’s hair seems painstakingly coiffed, right down to the occasional, ostensible cowlick. He looks like Christian Bale’s depiction of Bruce Wayne but with a MOAB-sized helping of hairgel.
The irony is that, amid all the chaos — of his alleged sexual misconduct, to the mass firing of his staff, to Signalgate and on and on — the man is always perfectly manicured. One has a sense that Hegseth will be more pleased in being named best-dressed of 2025 than anything else.
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July 24, 1974 The United States Supreme Court (U.S. v. Nixon) unanimously ordered President Richard Nixon to surrender tape recordings of White House conversations regarding the Watergate affair. Speaking for the Supreme Court in front of a packed and hushed courtroom, Chief Justice Warren E. Burger (a Nixon appointee) rejected President Nixon’s claims of executive privilege (virtually total confidentiality for the White House) because the need for fair administration of criminal justice must prevail. The White House feared review of the recordings by a U.S. district judge would reveal, among other crimes, impeachable offenses. Listen to the tapes online (It’s a YouTube playlist!)
July 24, 1983 Canadians and Americans spanned the international border at Thousand Islands Bridge, linking New York and Ontario, to protest nuclear weapons and border harassment of peace activists. Thousand Islands Bridge
July 24, 1983 Women tagged a U.S. warplane with anti-nuclear graffiti at Greenham Common, an air base in England. The Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp had been set up just outside the perimeter of the base in 1981 to get U.S. Cruise missiles, some of which were deployed at the base, out of their country. Other tactics included disrupting construction work at the base, blockading the entrance, and cutting down parts of the fence. Read more about The Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp
Mesopithecus pentelicus thrived in the rainforests of the late Miocene, 7 million years ago. Credit: Mauricio Antón
Small, slender and short-lived, with broad noses, big, dark-adapted eyes, living underground, and in the shadows of a shattered, steamy, chaotic world. Richard Musgrove asks: will this be us in 10,000 years?
Climate change is the greatest challenge in human history – current trends could have us eventually approaching extremes not seen on our planet for 15 million years. Will a destabilised global climate wreak economic havoc, leading to societal collapse, mass mortalities, even extinction? Or will we pull ourselves out of this spectacular self-imposed nose-dive?
Which raises the question – what if we don’t? How will humanity change on a much hotter Earth?
Numbers matter
Uncharted territory approaches as we nudge the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C above preindustrial levels, on track for a potentially catastrophic 2.7°C by 2100. What about 2200, or 3200?
Globally, days above 50°C have doubled since the 1980s – in Australia, Pakistan, India and the Persian Gulf – with the ‘feels-like’ temperature often higher. Even immediately reduced carbon emissions will still mean lingering planet-wide heating and associated effects for many thousands of years.
Our adaptability has led us this far, but what does evolution have in store for our species if we don’t rise to face our greatest challenge? The answer is unlikely to be in the mirror.
Nothing sweats like us (snip-MORE)
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Medicaid ‘gamers’ are the new ‘welfare queens’ by Aaron Rupar
Republicans are taking strawman arguments to absurd extremes. Read on Substack
Earlier this month, Donald Trump and congressional Republicans passed a grotesque budget bill that (partially) funds massive tax breaks for the wealthy and a ramped-up ICE goon squad by cutting cutting $1.1 trillion from Medicaid and an additional $185 billion from federal food assistance programs, all while adding $2.8 trillion to the deficit.
Not surprisingly, the bill is massively unpopular. As a result, Republicans are gaslighting Americans about its impact, particularly regarding the cuts to Medicaid, which are expected to cost 10 million Americans their health coverage.
The Medicaid cuts could result in more than 16,000 extra deaths per year, researchers say. Republicans have tried to distract from that reality with a combination of blatant lies and misdirecting rhetoric. To hear them tell it, they’re only cutting supposed waste, fraud, and abuse. So when you lose benefits, they’re here to explain why it’s probably your own damn fault.
The lazy gamer myth
Republican messaging surrounding Medicaid cuts borrows heavily from Ronald Reagan’s playbook. (snip- MORE)
Of course, there are innumerable instances when the Bible has historically been used to enforce the idea that gender is a divinely ordained binary, with male and female genders that are distinct, complementary, and assigned at birth.
Indeed, the Bible’s general attitude toward gender is expansive, with verses exploring God’s focus on the interior over the exterior, the distinction between sex and gender, the role of eunuchs in scripture, and more.
Here are 10 Bible verses that show a biblical approach to gender that is as varied as the colors in a rainbow.
Genesis 1:27 So God created humans in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.
Day and night. Water and dry land. Male and female. The creation poem might sound like it’s dealing in binaries, but we know that all of these things have transitional elements. Day and night contain transitions at dawn and dusk; the spectrum of water and dry land includes tidal plains and coral reefs; and people who are intersex, genderqueer, nonbinary, and more can be found between “male and female”.
Genesis 25:27 When the boys grew up, Esau was a skillful hunter, a man of the field, while Jacob was a quiet man, living in tents.
Jacob is described as “smooth” (Genesis 27:11) and stays in the tent where he cooks – traditional female attributes in the ancient world. Yet he is chosen over his “hairy” brother Esau, a skilled hunter, to lead God’s people, showing that God does not place value on traditional gender norms.
Isaiah 56:4-5 For thus says the Lord: To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths, who choose the things that please me and hold fast my covenant, I will give, in my house and within my walls, a monument and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off.
Eunuchs were men who had been castrated, especially those employed to guard the women’s living areas. They represent clear historical examples outside of the gender binary in the Bible and are welcomed into the temple and to the community of worship.
Matthew 19:11-12 But [Jesus] said to them, “Not everyone can accept this teaching, but only those to whom it is given. For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let anyone accept this who can.”
The disciples ask Jesus to clarify the explanation of gender in Genesis 1 as it relates to divorce. In answering them, Jesus offers this non-judgmental example of eunuchs that invokes a range of genders. This indicates the law should be flexible enough to allow for this range, instead of being too narrow to recognize its existence.
Galatians 3:27-28 As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek; there is no longer slave or free; there is no longer male and female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.
The apostle Paul explains that unity in Christ is what’s important, superseding the concept of gender and other identity markers.
Mark 11:17 [Jesus] was teaching and saying, “Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’? But you have made it a den of robbers.”
In this verse, Jesus is referencing Isaiah 56, when eunuchs are welcomed into the community at temple. He prioritizes welcoming all people, regardless of gender.
Acts 8:38-39 He commanded the chariot to stop, and both of them, Philip and the eunuch, went down into the water, and Philip baptized him. When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away; the eunuch saw him no more and went on his way rejoicing.
1 Samuel 16:7 But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him, for the Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.”
When the prophet Samuel was charged by God to look for a new king, David didn’t seem as king-like as the other options presented to Samuel — but he was still the right choice. Once again, we see that God does not share the human preoccupation with external biological features. Our physical bodies do not determine deeper matters of our identity.
Romans 2:29 Rather, a person is a Jew who is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not the written code. Such a person receives praise not from humans but from God.
As with the example of God choosing David because of what was in his heart, here the Bible says that physical alteration (like being circumcised) isn’t what matters to God — it’s what’s in the heart.
Genesis 16:13 So [Hagar] named the Lord who spoke to her, “You are El-roi,” for she said, “Have I really seen God and remained alive after seeing him?”
Hagar changes the name she uses for God, reflecting a change in how she recognizes who God is — not a change in God’s own identity, but an uncovering that leads to a fuller understanding and affirmation of God’s identity. Similarly, someone may choose to change the gender (and the name that goes with it) that they identify with as a reflection of a greater understanding and affirmation of who they are, out of a desire that the world may better know and understand them, too.
Heather BradyHeather Brady is the audience engagement manager at Sojourners.
A U.S. Army veteran who was arrested during an immigration raid at a Southern California marijuana farm last week said Wednesday he was sprayed with tear gas and pepper spray before being dragged from his vehicle and pinned down by federal agents who arrested him.
George Retes, 25, who works as a security guard at Glass House Farms in Camarillo, said he was arriving at work on July 10 when several federal agents surrounded his car and — despite him identifying himself as a U.S. citizen — broke his window, peppered sprayed him and dragged him out.
In this image taken from video provided by United Farm Workers, George Retes speaks about being arrested at an immigration raid at a Southern California marijuana farm during a press conference held over Zoom in Oxnard, Calif., Wednesday, July 16, 2025. (United Farm Workers via AP)
“It took two officers to nail my back and then one on my neck to arrest me even though my hands were already behind my back,” Retes said.
Massive farm raids led to hundreds being detained
The Ventura City native was detained during chaotic raids at two Southern California farms where federal authorities arrested more than 360 people, one of the largest operations since President Donald Trump took office in January. Protesters faced off against federal agents in military-style gear, and one farmworker died after falling from a greenhouse roof.
The raids came more than a month into an extended immigration crackdown by the Trump administration across Southern California that was originally centered in Los Angeles, where local officials say the federal actions are spreading fear in immigrant communities.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom spoke on the raids at a news conference Wednesday, calling Trump a “chaos agent” who has incited violence and spread fear in communities.
“You got someone who dropped 30 feet because they were scared to death and lost their life,” he said, referring to the farmworker who died in the raids. “People are quite literally disappearing with no due process, no rights.”
Retes was taken to the Metropolitan Detention Center in downtown Los Angeles, where he said he was put in a special cell on suicide watch and checked on each day after he became emotionally distraught over his ordeal and missing his 3-year-old daughter’s birthday party Saturday.
Milk is poured on a protester’s face after federal immigration agents tossed tear gas at protesters during a raid in the agriculture area of Camarillo, Calif., Thursday, July 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Michael Owen Baker)
He said federal agents never told him why he was arrested or allowed him to contact a lawyer or his family during his three-day detention. Authorities never let him shower or change clothes despite being covered in tear gas and pepper spray, Retes said, adding that his hands burned throughout the first night he spent in custody.
On Sunday, an officer had him sign a paper and walked him out of the detention center. He said he was told he faced no charges.
Retes met with silence when seeking explanation
“They gave me nothing I could wrap my head around,” Retes said, explaining that he was met with silence on his way out when he asked about being “locked up for three days with no reason and no charges.”
Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, confirmed Retes’ arrest but didn’t say on what charges.
“George Retes was arrested and has been released,” she said. “He has not been charged. The U.S. Attorney’s Office is reviewing his case, along with dozens of others, for potential federal charges related to the execution of the federal search warrant in Camarillo.”
A federal judge on Friday ordered the Trump administration to halt indiscriminate immigration stops and arrests without warrants in seven California counties, including Los Angeles. Immigrant advocates accused federal agents of detaining people because they looked Latino. The Justice Department appealed on Monday and asked for the order to be stayed.
The Pentagon also said Tuesday it was ending the deployment of 2,000 National Guard troops in Los Angeles. That’s roughly half the number the administration sent to the city following protests over the immigration actions. Some of those troops have been accompanying federal agents during their immigration enforcement operations.
Retes said he joined the Army at 18 and served four years, including deploying to Iraq in 2019.
“I joined the service to help better myself,” he said. “I did it because I love this (expletive) country. We are one nation and no matter what, we should be together. All this separation and stuff between everyone is just the way it shouldn’t be.”
Veteran pledges to sue federal authorities for his ordeal
Retes said he plans to sue for wrongful detention.
“The way they’re going about this entire deportation process is completely wrong, chasing people who are just working, especially trying to feed everyone here in the U.S.,” he said. “No one deserves to be treated the way they treat people.”
Retes was detained along with California State University Channel Islands professor Jonathan Caravello, also a U.S. citizen, who was arrested for throwing a tear gas canister at law enforcement, U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli posted on X.
The California Faculty Association said Caravello was taken away by agents who did not identify themselves nor inform him of why he was being taken into custody. Like Retes, the association said the professor was then held without being allowed to contact his family or an attorney.
Caravello was attempting to dislodge a tear gas canister that was stuck underneath someone’s wheelchair, witnesses told KABC-TV, the ABC affiliate in Los Angeles.
A federal judge on Monday ordered Caravello to be released on $15,000 bond. He’s scheduled to be arraigned Aug. 1.
“I want everyone to know what happened. This doesn’t just affect one person,” Retes said. “It doesn’t matter if your skin is brown. It doesn’t matter if you’re white. It doesn’t matter if you’re a veteran or you serve this country. They don’t care. They’re just there to fill a quota.” ___ Associated Press writer Jamie Ding contributed from Los Angeles.
July 23, 1846 Author Henry David Thoreau was jailed for refusing to pay the poll tax as a protest against the Mexican war, which in turn led to his writing “Civil Disobedience.” This essay became a source of inspiration for Leo Tolstoy, Mahatma Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, Jr. From Thoreau’s essay: “Unjust laws exist: shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress them at once?” Daguerreotype of Henry David Thoreau Out of Thoreau’s jailing grew a legend: The great American philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson visited Thoreau in jail. Emerson asked, “Henry, why are you here?” Thoreau replied, “Why are you not here? Under a government which imprisons unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison.” Thoreau was not alone in his opposition: Thomas Corwin of Ohio denounced the war as merely the latest example of American injustice to Mexico: “If I were a Mexican I would tell you,‘Have you not room enough in your own country to bury your dead.’” Henry Clay [former speaker of the House and presidential candidate] declared, “This is no war of defense, but one of unnecessary and offensive aggression.” Abraham Lincoln also opposed the war, and lost his seat in Congress as a result. The entire essay (in annotated form)
July 23, 1967 Detroiters angry at loss of jobs and, especially, at the abusive and virtually all-white police department, started rioting in what became known as the Detroit Rebellion. The intitiating incident was an early-morning raid on a blind pig (Detroit for after-hours drinking club) on 12th Street. The violence spread elsewhere in the city, and led to President Lyndon Johnson’s calling out 8000 members of the National Guard. Order was not restored for six days. In the end, there were 43 known dead, 347 injured, 3800 arrested, 1000 families homeless. Thirteen hundred buildings burned to the ground and twenty-seven hundred businesses were looted. Online documentary on all aspects of what happened, “Ashes to Hope” The Rebellion from a 40-year perspective
While asshole billionaires are enjoying the continuation of huge tax cuts, Donald Trump and Republicans realized, maybe, that this will actually increase our national debt. Why didn’t somebody say something? So in order to slow down the bleeding, the goons looked for where they could make some cuts and save. No, they did not cut the budgets for ICE, defense, bombs for Israel to drop on the kids in Gaza, Trump golf trips, or Trump birthday parades. Maybe they could sell the plane Qatar bribed Trump with, if anyone else actually wanted it.
Trump and Republicans passed a bill that will cut $1.1 billion in federal funding for PBS and NPR. Trump is all giddy about this and posted to ShitSocial…
Of course, this impacts Sesame Street. What kind of asshole hates Sesame Street? Donald Trump is that kind of asshole. Donald Trump was an asshole millionaire by the time he was 8 years old. His allowance at 3 years old was around $200,000 a year. That explains why he doesn’t have any appreciation for Sesame Street. If nothing else, Sesame Street could have taught him how to count his money and maybe realize that if you spend more than you bring in, you will increase debt. Cookie Monster knows this. You can’t eat more cookies than you have. Maybe if Trump watched Sesame Street, he wouldn’t speak like a drugged-out crackhead and could talk the king’s English as well as the president of Liberia.
Sesame Street might have saved Trump from being the kind of asshole who sexually assaults and rapes women. It could have saved him from being a grifter and a thief. It could have saved him from growing up into a racist liar. Sesame Street could have saved Trump from turning into Trump.
As Matt Hooper said in Jaws while describing a Great White Shark as a machine, “All this machine does is swim and eat and make little sharks, and that’s all.” Trump is also a machine, and all that asshole machine does is grift, sexually assault women, and make little assholes.
By the way, have you seen a photo of Barron Trump lately? He’s cultivating the asshole look. He may be taking grooming tips from older brother, Don Jr. Fortunately, Barron hasn’t developed the coke-up dazed expression yet, so for now, he only has the Christian Bale serial killer look from American Psycho.
Anyhoosies, we’re supposed to be talking about Big Bird and not Big Turd, the serial killer of democracy. I wanted to avoid drawing Big Bird for a cartoon on this subject, as so many other cartoonists did this week. But after I got the bucket idea, how could I not?
That’s the blog for today, Peezeheads. One of my clients asked for a local cartoon this morning, and he asked about an hour ago if he could have it by 11 a.m. tomorrow. I haven’t even read the article yet, so I should do that. You’re also going to get a blog about Ozzy. Stay tooned. And no talking about Ozzy in the comments until the Ozzy blog. Pretend you’re a Republican and Ozzy is the Epstein Client List. (snip-MORE)
Have you heard about Vortex Bladeless Ltd.? It’s a Spain (just outside Madrid) based tech company developing a wind power generator without rotating blades.
STRUCTURE & OPERATION ~~~ There is a fixed base and a cylindrical mast that oscillates freely perpendicular to the wind direction, jointed by a carbon rod.
Inner parts never collide with each other, but interact to generate electricity.
ENERGY HARNESS When the wind passes around a structure, vortexes of pressure are created.
The frequency of vortexes depends on the wind speed, and if the structure has a similar natural resonating frequency, it begins to oscillate and harness their energy.
This phenomenon of aeroelastic resonance is called Vortex Shedding, and happens regularly in nature.
ENERGY CONVERSION Similar to a traditional alternator, our device gets an interaction between coils and magnetic fields, generating electricity by electromagnetic induction without need for rotation on a shaft nor a gearbox.
The skybrators, as some wits have amusingly dubbed them, stand at a hair over nine feet (2.75 metres) tall.
“Our technology has different characteristics which can help to fill the gaps where traditional windfarms might not be appropriate,” says Yáñez (Inventor, Founder and Co-CEO of Vortex Bladeless).
These gaps could include urban and residential areas where the impact of a windfarm would be too great, and the space to build one would be too small.It plugs into the same trend for installing small-scale, on-site energy generation, which has helped homes and companies across the country save on their energy bills.
This could be wind power’s answer to the home solar panel, says Yáñez. (source)
Snip-More, Not Too Much, Go Read It, It’s Exciting!
This is a fun half from an Emma Thursday 07-17-2025
This last one is from the Nazi authoritarian cult of tRump maga who I posted a meme of getting fired and asking for money because his boss felt his was not a good fit for the company. FAFO
Scottie's Playtime 
